


Moonstones and Tiger Iron

by timberlydrake_wayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, F/M, Ghost Adventures AU, Ghost Hunting, I only vaguely know what I'm talking about and the rest I'm making up, M/M, vague magic elements, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24390946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timberlydrake_wayne/pseuds/timberlydrake_wayne
Summary: I've been watching too much Ghost Adventures, so I started writing a fun ghost hunting au, but then it turned less silly and more serious! If you like fun ghost adventures and also serious ghost adventures and also weird hard-wavy spirit and magic stuff, maybe this is the fic for you! First solo chaptered fic, too, so hopefully it goes well!
Relationships: Dorcas Meadowes/Marlene Mckinnon, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 11





	1. First Hunt

“This is a bad idea,” Remus hisses to his mic as he walks down the stairs to the basement, camera light and night vision leading the way.

“Sorry, Rem, but you’ve been getting the best activity all night,” James responds in his ear. “Just keep this channel open, we’ll be with you the whole time.”

“This is stupid,” Remus mutters. “Why did I let you all drag me into this.”

“Because you’re a semi-skeptical adrenaline junkie and we’re the most reputable ghost hunters who had an opening,” Sirius says, grin obvious in his voice.

Remus rolls his eyes but doesn’t answer, trying to keep his breathing even despite his nerves. Sirius isn’t wrong, but what he and James don’t know is that Remus has been following their hunts for years and harbors a crush on co-host Sirius that he will take with him to his grave. Which might be sooner than planned if the two lead ghost hunters keep throwing him head first into dark basements at haunted locations. Sometimes he wonders if it was a smart move to apply for the position when James’ wife was restricted to tech due to her pregnancy.

He reaches the bottom stair and takes a deep breath, but as soon as he steps off he lets out a quiet involuntary “oof.”

“Everything okay, Remus?” James asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “It just feels… heavy, down here.”

“Set up the spirit box!” Sirius says, excited.

Remus takes another breath as he hears James tell Sirius to “calm down, he knows what he’s doing.”

His eyes adjust to the dark, so he finds a surface to set his camera on so he can set up what little equipment he’s brought down here. He switches on the EMF meter and freezes as it immediately starts to beep with a reading. He can hear James and Sirius make excited noises, and after a second he gets the spirit box ready.

“This device,” he says, quietly but firmly, “will allow any spirits or entities to communicate with us — with me. It’s just me down here, so please won’t you come talk to me?”

Remus squints in anticipation of the noise before he turns it on, the loud static grating on his ears as he sets it down. He sits and places it in front of him and adjusts to the noise in such a quiet space, thinking about what he wants to ask, but words come through the spirit box without any prompting. He freezes again, but can’t make sense of it, so he carries on, bolstered by the other two’s excitement in his ears.

“Who’s down here with me?” he asks, pauses, then continues. “Are you the spirit of the woman who died here? Or the man who murdered her?”

The box runs through its static.

“You were so enthusiastic when I turned it on,” Remus says. “Who is it? Who’s here with me?”

He shivers, wraps his arms around himself, and leans into his mic. “Guys, it just got really cold in here.”

“We should’ve sent you with more equipment,” James says.

“You good down there?” Sirius asks.

“I’m good,” he answers before raising his voice again. “I’m going to ask again, who’s down here with me? The victim? Or the murderer?”

“—run—“

Remus’ adrenaline spikes. “Run? Who’s telling me to run? Do you want me to escape, or is it so you can chase me?”

He scrambles backwards when he feels air move past his face, accidentally kicking the spirit box as it spits out the word “—rabbit.”

“Remus!” James shouts. “What happened, are you okay?” There’s noise on James’ end, and Remus deduces it’s Sirius scrabbling for equipment when Remus doesn’t hear his voice.

“I’m fine!” Remus says, getting to his feet and picking up all his equipment. “I’m not running,” he directs to the room. “I’m no rabbit. There are no more victims for you!”

He barely hears Sirius come downstairs behind him, his trademark “Padfoot” silent tread scaring him almost more than the spirit box’s reply.

“—kill you—“

“I’d like to see you try!” Remus yells.

“Remus!” Sirius says, grabbing at his arm to get to the spirit box.

“—Rem—“ he switches it off, and the room is deafening in the following silence, broken only by Remus’ stuttering breaths.

Sirius gives him a second, reporting the events to James from his point of view.

Remus collects his camera as his breathing settles, embarrassment washing over him as he replays the ‘conversation.’ He turns back towards Sirius, eyes down, and opens his mouth to apologize, maybe, but Sirius speaks first.

“Damn, Moony,” he says, grin wide in the night vision. “Let’s go review the footage, yeah?”

“I—yeah,” he says, and follows Sirius back upstairs. Halfway up, he feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and whips around to look back around the basement. Sirius pauses, but there’s nothing in the camera feed as he pans it over the large room.

“Sorry, keep going.”

They resume ascending, and Sirius asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah, just felt unsettled for a second.”

Sirius snorts. “So now your sense of self-preservation kicks in.”

“Hey, at least I have one. You always seem to leave yours at home.”

Sirius barks a laugh, and Remus, afraid he had crossed a boundary so early in their working relationship, smiles in relief.

They get outside and to the equipment tent and Remus is immediately accosted. James pulls him over to a chair, and once he’s sitting he realizes how absolutely exhausted he is. Lily passes him a thermos and he takes it gratefully, the hot chocolate welcome and grounding.

“Jesus, Rem,” James says, running a hand through his hair with a laugh of disbelief. He checks to make sure the tent camera is running before plopping into his own chair. Sirius lounges against the table closest to the monitors.

“Sorry,” Remus says, looking chagrined. “I-I’m not sure what happened.”

“Yeah, that was incredibly unlike you,” Lily says, looking concerned as she starts playing back the footage he had just captured. Hearing it again, Remus can feel his ears getting warm, and he’s embarrassed all over again. When the box says the word ‘rabbit’ on the playback, the other three all suck in a breath at the same time as they watch him scramble away from...something.

“What happened there?” Lily asks, rewinding and replaying the moment a couple of times.

“Something swung at me,” Remus says. “Or something.”

“‘Or something?’” she asks.

“I felt the air move, right in front of my face, like someone took a swing at me.”

Sirius whistles lowly, still grinning. “‘Not a rabbit’ for sure, eh Prongs?”

“Yeah, that meek exterior isn’t going to fool us anymore.” James’ smile matches Sirius’. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing, more like.”

Remus puts his head in his hands. Lily pats his shoulder, but when he looks at her she’s smiling too. “When whatever it was took that swing at you, there was a massive power surge and we heard something through your feed,” she explains. “It pulled a ton of power to do it. We were panicked, we thought you were really hurt but what we heard was the spirit box sliding across the floor. Sirius almost forgot a camera, he was so frantic.”

“Ah, sorry for scaring you,” Remus says, grimacing.

“Listen, Moony, that’s the best footage we’ve gotten all weekend,” Sirius says. “Not bad for your first official hunt.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me that,” Remus says, curious.

“‘Not a rabbit,’ right?” Sirius says, smiling. “A wolf, the moon, you know! It’s your nickname, like Padfoot and Prongs.”

James is nodding beside him. “Hard to follow, Padfoot, but not your worst work.” He smiles at Remus. “You’re a Marauder now.”


	2. The Doll House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus gets to see Sirius connect to a spirit! Also, porcelain dolls stare too much. Content warning for mentions of child abuse, so proceed carefully if that's hard for you !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I sitting on a good number of chapters? Yes, yes I am. Did I have to force myself to wait a few days before posting this next chapter? Yes I did. Be warned, this one does hint at and outright mention child abuse. It's not described in any fashion, but it's there. Take care of yourselves!

**CW: Mentions of child abuse**

The house is pretty large, stately in a way that means upper-middle class at least, rich enough to afford extraneous space. The kind of house Remus has never gotten the chance to see the inside of until now, of course, and he’s a little distracted by the potential haunting to appreciate the home itself. 

This place has a tragic history, as most of these places do. The woman who lived here took care of her niece, as the girl’s parents had passed when she was young. The woman was cruel, and eventually ended up killing the girl. Her death was ruled accidental, however, and the aunt was never convicted. She died years later after choking to death in her bed. The family that lives here currently asked the Marauders to come because their young son has been the victim of aggressive activity. He’s terrified, and they don’t want to stay in the house.

Sirius is unusually...serious. But Remus follows his lead, and James’, as they head inside to start the investigation.

Remus pans his camera across the room, making sure to take in the porcelain face of each and every doll lining the shelves in the room.

“I hate it in here,” he mutters.

“Awe, c’mon Moony,” Sirius says, grinning. “Don’t you think they have a certain charm?”

“No,” Remus says. He stops. “Look, this one’s been glued back together.” He steps closer to get a good look but Sirius sticks out an arm to stop him.

“Don’t,” he says, squinting at it.

“What’s up, Pads?” James says.

Sirius points to the broken doll. “Let’s get the SLS set up in here and do an EVP session.” He’s tense, Remus notices.

It only takes a few minutes to get set up. Sirius takes up a spot next to the doll with the voice recorder and James sticks close to him to keep the camera close, so Remus mans the SLS and the static cam.

Sirius glances around at them all before saying. “Who’s here with us? Who broke this doll?”

James shudders next to Sirius and sticks out a hand. “Got really cold. Play that back.”

They take a second to rewind and playback the audio. Sirius’ voice filters back through, quickly followed by the sound of a child crying. They all look at each other and Sirius immediately gets back to recording.

“Hey, we’re not upset,” Sirius says gently. “We just want to know what happened.”

“I’ve got something on the SLS,” Remus says quietly, unwilling to interrupt. James and Sirius glance at him and continue.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Sirius says. “My name’s Sirius, this here is Jamie, and that’s Remus. Think of us like big brothers.”

“A small figure is right next to you, Sirius,” Remus says.

“My empty hand has gone a little numb,” Sirius mutters.

“The figure is-is holding your hand, looks like,” Remus says, shifting where he stands. 

Sirius freezes for a second, but relaxes, leaving that arm stationary while he plays back the audio again.

When he says, “We just want to know what happened,” a little girl’s voice drifts through with a very clear, very upset, “I’m sorry.” All three of them suck in a breath.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Sirius says. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes kids break things, right? Things shouldn’t matter more than kids. I’m sorry she hurt you for it.”

“She’s holding onto you with both of her hands, Sirius,” Remus says. James, looking concerned, puts a hand on Sirius’ shoulder, and when Sirius looks up at Remus, he can see his eyes are wet.

“Do you need to take a breather?” James asks.

Sirius shakes his head and crouches, but seems to lose his balance as the figure on Remus’ screen collides with him.

Remus yells, surprised, and starts forward, but he stops as Sirius’ arms come up to hold something they can’t see. After a few moments, he sniffs, hard, and stands back up. 

“She’s okay,” Sirius says.

“Are  _ you  _ okay?” James asks. 

Sirius nods, rubs at his eyes, and pats James’ shoulder.

“There’s more than one spirit here,” Sirius says. “Let’s go find that bitch aunt.”

Remus snorts unexpectedly and quickly presses his free hand to his mouth, but Sirius and James both grin at him and get everything together to keep moving.

They end up in the master bedroom where the bitter old woman eventually passed away, and get everything set up the same way they had with the dolls, except this time there’s a hard set to Sirius’ jaw. 

“All right,” he says, confrontational. “What grown-ass adult thinks a doll is more important than a kid’s well-being?”

Remus watches the SLS feed anxiously, feeling more nervous than he did when they started this investigation. So far he’s got nothing, and they stand quietly, looking around the room, listening intently.

“What’s the matter?” Sirius taunts. “No one here you can bully?”

Something behind Remus clatters, and they all whip around to look. An empty photo frame had been sitting atop the dresser but has now been knocked flat.

“Oh, you’ll have to do better than that,” Sirius says, a wild grin on his face. 

A figure appears in the SLS but before Remus can say anything it’s moving towards him too quickly. He shouts and stumbles sideways, trying to keep it in view, but it disappears again. Sirius and James are talking over each other to make sure he’s okay.

“Nothing touched me, I’m totally fine,” Remus says. “I think you’re riling her up, she’s looking for easy targets.”

“Good thing you’re not one, eh, Moony?” James says, grinning. Remus returns the smile as Sirius yells at the spirit some more.

“You won’t chase us out of here that easily! Why don’t you leave this house alone, it’s not yours anymore!”

The walls seem to rattle around them, and they hear the sounds of shattering porcelain from downstairs. Remus hopes their static cam is still recording in that room.

James joins in now. “The girl who was stuck here with you is gone. Time for you to be gone, too.”

With that, the house stills, eerily quiet after so much movement and noise. They all look around at each other. 

“Is that it, do you think?” Sirius says.

“I think so,” James says.

“It does feel...different in here,” Remus adds.

James takes a deep breath. “All right, let's pack up and head out, let the family know they can come back home. Oftentimes enough intent will chase a weak spirit out but we’ll follow up in a few days.”

They pack up in a bit of a haze, Lily debriefing them on the activity and Peter excitedly recounting some of their best footage, and pile into the van to head back to their hotel. It’s only a twenty minute drive, but Sirius is snoring before they’ve even left the neighborhood.

James looks at Remus in the rearview. “So, Moony, how do you like being a Marauder? Everything you thought it’d be?”

Remus is too tired to parse meaning but answers as honestly as he can. “It’s terrifying, but I really like it.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” James says with a genuine smile. “We’ll be there soon, so don’t you doze off too.”

Remus laughs a little and shakes his head.

When they arrive, James gets them set up in several rooms, and they separate to put their things down and change clothes before meeting up again at the 24-hour breakfast restaurant across the road. The late hour combined with all those pancakes leaves a very quiet, very tired group of Marauders trudging back to their hotel to collapse into their respective beds.

A few weeks and a couple less exciting hunts later, Remus settles in with his tea and laptop to watch his “premiere,” as they send him into that basement on his first appearance on their little show. It’s weird seeing himself on the channel he’s been obsessed with for years. He cringes, again, at his outburst, but he understands after watching why Sirius was so frantic to get down to him. When he kicked the spirit box, not only did the scraping feed through his mic, but they’d gotten an absolutely terrifying EVP on their end. He remembers Lily mentioning it but this is the first time he hears the growl-like noise. Peter, the skilled editor that he is, had cut the two moments together to make a sequence that even spooked Remus, and he had been there. 

The comments on the video are more or less positive, most of the fans very welcoming to him. There are the odd few lamenting the change in dynamic, but he hopes they’ll come around like they had when Lily joined. He rolls his eyes at the comments from Sirius and James’ self-proclaimed rival ghost hunting group, the Death Eaters, easily picked out due to the ‘dark mark’ they use as icons. These guys have been trying to prove that the Marauders are faking the incidents in their videos, led by Severus Snape, who apparently hates them because of childhood bullying.

Remus doesn’t know anything about that, but he knows James and Sirius are good people and probably did a lot of growing up, whereas any video he watches of the Death Eaters makes his skin crawl. They don’t care about the dead or the living. The Marauders never aim to agitate or exacerbate a haunting, only to investigate in order to educate and assist and maybe help spirits move on. The Death Eaters just want power, and they aren’t afraid to trample anyone or anything in gaining it. 

Every so often, Snape and his gang will crash a Marauders hunt, wrecking equipment or messing with readings and generally causing enough of a problem that Sirius and James have to pack up and leave. They’re very careful about what they post to social media until after the job is done, but somehow, once in a blue moon, Snape gets lucky. Remus hopes he never meets them. 

Overall, though, he’s pleased that it seems like he won’t get chased off the show by the fans.


	3. The Longbottom Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally we justify Kingsley's name in the tags! And I start to explore the little world I've created. Frank and Alice Longbottom have asked the Marauders to investigate and hopefully clear out the activity in their home, but things get a little tense (because of course they do, it's a ghost hunt!).

Remus is double-checking the batteries and making sure they have extras charged as they set up their home base tent outside a relatively new-looking condo. This one is a favor to a friend, James had said, but he’s allowing them to film it like usual, so they’re trying to treat it like it’s not personal. 

“Frank and Alice Longbottom moved into this apartment two months ago to start a family, but the activity here has only gotten worse,” Sirius narrates into the camera.

“Alice has asked us to clarify what sort of spirits or entities occupy the house so they can get it cleared out before the baby comes,” James finishes. 

Ah, Remus thinks, that’s why he’s so fired up about it. He had done a little research on his own about the building. It’s not as old as some of the places they’ve been to even in the few months Remus has been with them, but there have been several deaths in the Longbottom’s condo. Two of natural causes (old age, heart attack), one carbon monoxide poisoning, and one freak slip-and-fall accident. Those last two have the most potential to become hauntings, but even if they aren’t trying to harm anyone, they’re frightening James’ friends.

“Everything all right, Moony?” James asks, patting his shoulder as he comes around to pick up his bag.

“Everything’s charged up and ready,” Remus says.

“We should start having you do the intros with us,” Sirius says, gathering up his share of things as well. 

“Oh, I-I couldn’t, you’re the hosts,” Remus says. 

Sirius scoffs. “That doesn’t matter,” he says.

Before they can discuss it further, Lily interrupts to give them the transcripts of their interviews with Frank and Alice so if necessary they can reference the information they were given.

They begin their initial walkthrough, cameras ready as they map out where they’re going to put the static cameras, a hushed conversation keeping them company in the quiet, dark home.

“So what’re you going to name the baby?” Remus asks James quietly. 

“Lily wants him to have my name,” James says, “but I think maybe it’ll be a nice middle name.”

“It’d be a little confusing with two Jameses,” Sirius says, laughing a little. Remus smiles.

“Whoa,” James says, pausing in the hallway. Sirius turns around immediately to check on him. 

“You okay, Jamie?” Sirius says.

“Yeah, it got cold right here,” James says. He turns to Remus, who’s already leaning into his space with the temperature gauge.

“It’s a seven degree difference,” Remus says. 

“Seven?” Sirius says. James gets straight to the questions.

“Who is here with us? Do you mean to harm the inhabitants here?” They pause for a long second, and the bathroom door slams shut, which they watch through the master bedroom’s doorway.

“Remus please tell me you caught that on your camera,” James says after a beat of silence.

“I think so,” Remus mutters. “Let’s listen to your recorder too.”

They play back James’ recording. When he asks about intent to harm, a female voice scratches through. They all look at each other.

“Did it say ‘go away’?” James asks. 

Sirius nods. “That’s what I heard.”

Remus grimaces, unconvinced but unsure of what else it could be. They replay his camera footage, though, and he did catch the door slamming, which they are thrilled with.

“Okay, let’s keep going,” James says. “It’s not a big area, so we should be able to get everything set up to cover a lot of ground.”

Once they’re finished, they head back to the main room, sitting down in the living room to look into the kitchen.

“So let’s go back over the reported activity,” Sirius says.

James nods. “Alice says she started hearing doors opening and slamming shut, the water running in the kitchen, and the cabinets banging. It’s escalated to cold spots and whispering, and she says she keeps catching sight of something right out of the corner of her eye. Frank says he’s been feeling like someone’s watching him, and sometimes he gets the faintest feeling of someone pushing him when he’s on the stairs.”

“We need to make sure no one gets hurt,” James says. Remus nods. 

“Let’s get the SLS set up in here, aimed at the kitchen,” Sirius says. 

“I’ll get the spirit box ready, too,” Remus says. “Maybe whatever was trying to talk to you in the hallway will still feel like talking.”

They set up, EMF on and reading, SLS running. James and Sirius take turns asking questions, anything from name to intent to whether it would leave. They get nothing for an entire half-hour. Absolutely nothing.

“We know you’re here,” James says, exasperated. “You already revealed yourself in the hall, you don’t have to keep hiding.”

Remus pulls back, thinking. “Is-is it...” James and Sirius both snap their attention to Remus. He swallows, looking at James. “We were talking about Lily and your baby, earlier.”

Sirius goes wide-eyed. “Do you think—“

They hear a slam further in the apartment and they all jump up.

“Moony, I think you’re onto something,” Sirius says, grinning. 

“Okay. Padfoot, Moony, let’s get back to base to reevaluate.”

Sirius gives him a mock salute. “Yes, sir, Prongsie!”

James rolls his eyes as they file outside, and claps Remus on his shoulder. “That was some good thinking,” he says, before moving past him to look at the different camera feeds. Remus feels warm with the praise.

They’re going back over all the footage they have (which isn’t a lot, truth be told), when Sirius stops and replays the bit from the hallway again.

“Remus,” he calls.

Remus looks up from his own camera. Sirius gestures for him to come over, and James comes up behind them. Sirius replays the scene, and Remus realizes why Sirius called him over in the second before he sees himself grimace at their interpretation of the EVP they recorded.

Sirius pauses and points. “What’s that face for?” he asks. He doesn’t sound upset or angry, but rather genuinely curious. A glance at James shows a similar lack of offense. Remus bites his lip, unsure of his boundaries as new as he still is to the group.

“Did you hear something different?” James asks.

“Yeah,” Remus says slowly. “I thought she said ‘stay away,’ not ‘go away.’”

“Okay,” James says. “So why is that an important distinction?”

“Thinking through the series of events,” Remus starts slowly. “Alice has been experiencing the banging and the noises, while Frank has been experiencing something distinctly more malicious, with the feeling of being watched and the threat of bodily harm.”

Sirius and James are watching him intently, looking serious, and Remus feels confident enough to keep going. “What if the ‘stay away’ is an attempt to protect one of the parents from whatever is more aggressive?” 

James looks at Lily. “Do we know anything about previous inhabitants who have passed away?” he asks her.

Remus answers first while Lily digs through the file she has on the house. “The most recent deaths, the past two ownerships, were accidental—a slip-and-fall and a CO poisoning.”

“He does his research,” Sirius says, grinning.

“Sorry, Lily,” Remus says, looking chagrined.

She grins at him too. “Saves me the trouble.”

“But where’s the activity coming from?” James asks.

“Maybe one of them was a bad kind of person?” Sirius says.

Lily turns away from the conversation, typing away at her keyboard.

“I thought when you bought or rented a place they had to tell you about things like that?” Remus says, brow furrowed. Sirius shrugs.

“I think it just applies to people who died? And not necessarily what sort of a person they were,” James says.

“The man who died of the carbon monoxide?” Lily starts, calling their attention, “He was arrested for aggravated assault, but was never convicted. Three separate times.” Her voice shakes. “His victims were all pregnant women.”

“The fall accident?” Remus asks quietly.

“A single soon-to-be mother,” she answers, just as quiet.

They’re all silent, each incredibly glad that Lily had stayed outside for this one. 

“Remus, how did you figure that one out?” Sirius asks.

Remus shrugs helplessly. “I started putting the pieces together and then it just didn’t feel right.”

“You must be really spirit-empathetic,” James says. “Good, you’re in good company.” 

Sirius gives him a thumbs up. “Different spirits speak to different people,” he says. Lily gives him a gentle pat on the shoulder.

“So!” James says, clapping his hands together. “Should we call Kingsley?”

Sirius and Lily nod, and Remus realizes he’s going to meet Kingsley Shacklebolt, friend of the Potter family who performs thorough cleansings on the most dangerous spirits they run into, especially when client safety is at risk. They usually don’t bother if they can flush the spirit out themselves, or if it’s an abandoned location, since other ghost hunters tend to keep those entities occupied.

“Wait,” he says. “What about the spirit of the pregnant woman?”

“The cleanse won’t hurt her,” James says reassuringly, laying a hand on Remus’ back. “There’s a good chance she’s only hanging around to keep others from dying like she did, at the hands of the malicious one. If she doesn’t have to worry about it, she should be able to move on.”

Appeased, Remus lets himself get a little giddy at the upcoming meeting with Kingsley. While he’s crushing very hard on Sirius, Kingsley is a fine specimen of a human being. James gives him a call, then turns back to the group to announce his eta in about two and a half hours. At this point it’s inching toward two in the morning, and Remus is flagging. He’s sure the others are, too, but they’re better at hiding it. After he tries (and fails) to stifle a yawn, Sirius appears in front of him with a thermos, then takes the chair next to him.

“Thanks,” Remus says, taking a long drink of coffee.

“Hanging in there, Moony?” Sirius asks kindly.

Remus nods, stifling another yawn. “Still getting used to the overnights.”

“Communicating with spirits will take a lot out of you, too,” Sirius says. “You’ve been doing a lot of that tonight.” At Remus’ confused look, he continues. “You might not be actively performing a ritual or anything, but you’ve been open to communication, and the spirit has been using that opening. It takes a lot out of a guy.”

Remus takes a deep breath. “I didn’t think about it like that.”

“James really goes hard when he connects to a ghost, wait till you see how absolutely dead to the world he is come morning,” Sirius says. He grins at his own play on words. “It doesn’t happen too often for me, but when it does I end up dozing off in the car on the ride back to the hotel. Remember after the doll house?” He gives Remus a light punch to the shoulder. “You’re doing well, honestly.”

“Thank you,” Remus says sincerely. They sit in comfortable silence together for a short breather until Lily rallies them again.

“All right, boys,” she says, standing. “Time to teach Remus how to prepare for one of Kingsley’s cleansings.”

“We still have time yet!” Sirius heckles, smiling.

“Even better, you can take your time. You need to get back out there or you’ll lose steam. Go on, shoo,” she says, ushering them out of the tent.

James leads the way to the vehicle first, pulling out a duffle Remus has always seen them pack but never use, and realizes that they have no camera equipment, nor has he ever seen footage of a cleansing in one of their videos.

“We don’t film this part,” James says as he digs through the bag. “If we film it, it gives whatever we’re trying to get rid of a clear path around the cleansing. That is, we run the risk of impeding the cleansing by keeping the footage of the before running connected during the after. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Remus says.

“Good. Take these candles.” Sirius dumps a bunch of candles into his arms of all different shapes and sizes, all white.

Once they return inside, James and Sirius start opening windows, the brisk night air slicing through each room.

When Kingsley arrives, the three meet him at the door.

“Remus, why don’t you help him unpack his things?” Sirius says. “We’ll start the pot boiling.” Remus looks to Kingsley, who smiles and gestures to the dining table with the bags he brought.

He starts laying out all his supplies, naming each for Remus’ benefit, starting with the plants and herbs. “My personal favorites for this kind of job. Lemongrass, sandalwood, and myrrh. For this situation in particular, I’m also adding a little oak for the Longbottoms. I’m going to start by boiling these together and using the steam, then spraying the mixture in active areas of the home.” 

He picks up a little pouch and shakes it. “Chamomile, lavender, and snapdragon, placed in specific focal points, will help keep everything clean and safe.” 

Another pouch, this one more rattling. “Black salt, for the doorsteps to keep out evil after I’m finished.” 

A bottle of —“rainwater, a couple drops for the pot.”

Next, he starts pulling out some crystals, all of which, like the candles, are in varying shapes and sizes. “This amethyst sphere protects, while the rose quartz cleanses. Both are staples.” He picks up a big chunky rock, semi-opaque with purples and blues. “Rainbow fluorite. This is for me.” 

At this point, James and Sirius come back to their spot at the table. Kingsley slides each of them a different rock, which they take without hesitation. James’ is a lovely light blue and looks more raw, while Sirius’ is polished and layered with golds, browns, and reds.

“James prefers blue kyanite, while Sirius works best with tiger iron.” Kingsley eyes him. “Which rock do you like best?” he asks, sliding the array of stones towards him.

“I don’t know anything about them,” Remus says, unsure.

“Perfect,” Kingsley says with a smile. “Just pick the one that calls to you.”

Remus examines the selection he’s been offered, a little overwhelmed. There are so many different colors, shapes, and shines. Inexplicably nervous, he runs his fingers through the pile, sifting through them, when a rounded polished stone with a bluish milky sheen clatters out of the pile. He picks it up, watching the way the light reflects blue off the surface, eyes tracing the cracks and striations inside. He looks up, and Kingsley looks satisfied, beginning to scoop all the other stones back into their container.

“Moonstone,” he tells him. 

Sirius lets out one of his barking laughs and claps Remus on the shoulder. “Perfect! Let’s get started!”

The process goes a little over Remus’ head, but he dutifully follows the instructions he’s given. He places lit candles and pouches of herbs where he’s told, and watches Kingsley work with incredible interest. When it’s finished, the condo feels so much lighter, and so does Remus.

After they help him pack up, Kingsley shakes each of their hands and heads out. They finish up, filming a conclusion, and then head back to home base to sift through the footage and see if there’s enough usable for an entire episode. Lily calls Frank and Alice to let them know their home is safe.


	4. The Penitentiary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Marauders visit a high-profile haunt and end up in more trouble than they expected.

They take a couple weekends off from hunting but come the third, Remus finds himself with more nerves than he’s had since he started doing investigations with the Marauders. They’re going to be spending the entire weekend at the state penitentiary, setting up home base in the lobby and staking out sleeping areas for each of them.

It’s their one well-known haunt for the season, the most highly requested in their poll. They don’t always go for the number one, but it’s been in the top of their last three monthly polls and apparently a lot of their fans really want to see them all spooked, and the Marauders will oblige.

As they approach the giant structure, Remus feels a sinking in his gut. Even James and Sirius go quiet in the front seats. They cross the threshold and it’s like a blanket is thrown over them, full of a deep, heavy feeling. Makes sense, considering the history here.

The front of the building is gorgeously imposing, and James and Sirius set up to do the intro at the doors while Lily and Peter head inside to start setting up home base. Remus starts to follow the latter two, like he usually does, but Sirius grasps his arm.

“Oh, no, researcher, you’re staying out here with us,” he says, grinning.

“We’ll run it a couple times but I think you’ll be fine,” James says, stopping Remus’ protests.

They take their places, seating Remus on Sirius’ other side, and James starts by introducing the location, appeasing fans, and giving a little beginning history. Sirius follows up by continuing the tale, leading up to its current abandoned state. They gesture to Remus, who deduces that he’s supposed to detail the grisly deaths and horrors committed by guards and staff, and they wrap the intro after the first take. James and Sirius both clap his shoulders and tell him he’s a natural. The warmth he feels follows him into the lobby, where Lily has been looking over the blueprints and marking hotspots for them to investigate.

“Okay, Remus,” she says once the cameras are rolling properly. “You seem to connect with victims pretty regularly, so you’re going to be set up here.” She indicates a room on the blueprint marked by a green circle, ignoring Remus’ surprise at her statement. “This is where the most activity is reported to be from spirits that were wrongfully convicted but most terrorized by the guards.”

“I what?” Remus says.

“Both times you’ve gotten the most activity, it was with spirits that were victims of some sort of brutality, right?”

Remus doesn’t respond, but realizes she’s correct.

“Sirius, you’ll go with him, since that’s a line shared with your thing.” Sirius nods, and Remus wonders what she means but doesn’t have time to think on it as she continues. “You’ll set up in the same block, but we’ll put you a little ways away. James,” she turns to her husband, who leans in for a kiss, then listens intently. “You’ll set up over on this end, the open air courtyard. There were three riots that took place there over the course of the prison being open.” James nods. “This is definitely a remote-communication situation so make sure to check your equipment every hour at least. Peter and I will coordinate.”

Peter gives them a strained smile, looking nervous, and Remus attempts to reassure him with a gentle smile of his own before Sirius pulls him away to gather up equipment.

“We’re definitely taking the SLS,” Sirius says, snatching it up and putting it in the bag. He hands over Remus’ handheld and an audio recorder, then collects the rest of the things for the bag before picking up his own. Once they’re all kitted up, they get their static cameras and sleeping bags and head out to their designated areas.

Remus and Sirius are heading to the wing that houses the solitary cells, as well as the site of tortuous treatment, most of which was inflicted upon innocents who were wrongfully convicted and were attempting to have their cases reopened. Remus would be lying if he said he isn’t nervous to sleep alone in this place. 

“Nervous, Moony?” Sirius asks with a small smile, pointing his camera Remus’ way.

“I-yeah, a bit,” Remus says. “Can’t say I’ve ever purposefully stayed the night in a location where I’ve been agitating spirits.”

Sirius drops his arm, angling the camera down instead, looking…serious. “We’ll do everything Kingsley taught us, so you don’t have to worry about your safety,” Sirius says. “And I’ll set up close by to sleep, regardless of how far away I’ll be for my portion of the investigation.”

Remus smiles at him, thankful, as they reach the end of the corridor where they split off to their different halls. Sirius sets up a static cam to watch where they’d come from, then heads towards the solitary confinement cells, while Remus turns towards the guards’ holding rooms, where ‘misbehaving’ inmates were sent.

He hears James in his ear, testing his mic, and Sirius follows. Remus tests his as well, and they’re all in working order. He sets his watch to check up on it again in an hour, and starts setting up in the room across from the one deemed most active. He already feels overwhelmed by the energy in the area.

“I’m in cell 17 of block 9, across from cell 18, the cell that housed many of the inmates that died of ‘mysterious circumstances,’” he says to the static cam, using air quotes to emphasize his point. “The guards here were encouraged by the warden to use excessive force, and they did so with incredible glee. Many of the inmates in this block were hoping to reopen their cases to overturn their sentences, and instead, they were tortured and murdered.”

He’s getting ready to set up a spirit box session when Lily pipes into his ear. “Hey Remus? I lost the feed to the camera Sirius set up in the hallway. He’s in the middle of his setup, or I’d ask him to check it out. Could you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Remus says, heading that way immediately. When he retraces his steps, he can’t find the camera. He remembers Sirius putting it here, in front of the directional sign, but it’s gone.

“Lily?” Remus says, switching his mic back on.

“What’s up, Moony? What’s wrong with the camera?”

“It’s...not here?”

“What?”

“The camera, the tripod, it’s not here.”

“You’re kidding. Are you in the right place?”

“I’m sure I am,” Remus says. “It’s gone.”

“Okay, Remus, leave your stuff, come back here. I’ll get the other boys. I don’t like this.”

“Okay. Heading your way.” Nerves spiking, he hurries back the way he and Sirius had come. He stops in his tracks, however, when something flashes down one of the side corridors. He fishes out his cellphone to start the camera, and pulls out his pocket flashlight.

“Hello?” he calls. When there’s no response, he takes a few hesitant steps down that way. “Is there someone there?” He pans the light around, straining to see anything. He pauses a long moment, listening, but it’s quiet and still—but as he turns away he catches something out of the corner of his eye and whips back around. Right where the hall turns, something is sticking out, and as he rounds the corner to check it out, he realizes it’s the tripod, knocked over. 

“Lily? I found the tripod but the camera isn’t here,” he says. She doesn’t respond, and he double checks that his mic is on and transmitting. “Lily?” He clicks through to the main channel. “James? Sirius?”

He gets no reply, so he turns back around, ready to find anyone else so he’s not alone anymore. He smacks into something behind him and blacks out.

———

Remus comes to in almost total darkness, tied to a rusting metal chair in the middle of a cell, head pounding. He’s been stripped of all his equipment, even his cell phone and small flashlight. His wrists and ankles are tied to the arms and legs of the chair, and he’s completely alone. Or, well, there’s no human in the room. There’s a bright light coming through the doorway, and he squints past it enough that can see his things in the room across the hall, which means he’s in cell 18, and his camera is still on.

“Hello?” he calls lowly, hesitantly. There is no response, and he looks around slowly.

He has no clues, but he doubts it was any spirit that clobbered him and tied him to a chair. Not that that offers any comfort; people can be incredibly cruel, and Remus knows that better than most.

Something rattles behind him, and he tries to whip around to look but he has very little wiggle room.

“Who’s there?” he asks. He gets no reply, and when he strains to hear, he thinks the noise wasn’t from a person hiding behind him somewhere.

“Is there a spirit in here with me?” he asks quietly. “I’m sorry those horrible things happened to you. Can you let me know you’re really here? Knock on something, brush my hand?”

He feels something thump into his chair, and is oddly relieved. “Thank you. Unfortunately I don’t have any equipment to help you talk to me.” He sucks in a shaking breath, trying to keep panic at bay. He pulls at the restraints. “This must seem scarily familiar to you. I’m sorry to dredge up those memories like this, it was never my intention.” Remus is babbling, he knows, but the sound of his own voice is keeping him from thinking too much about the situation. Something bumps his chair again. His head hurts, but he’s glad he’s not alone, even if his company is ephemeral.

He quiets, hands shaking. “This is crazy,” he mutters, letting his head hang. What choices led him here? To being kidnapped on a ghost hunt? He breathes slowly, deliberately, concentrating on his air rather than his situation, the spirit in the room an oddly comforting companion. 

After an indeterminate amount of time, Remus hears footsteps in the hallway and feels the presence that was keeping him company move past him and away. He laments the loss for the few seconds he’s alone until the newcomer enters the room, spiking panic into Remus’ gut. Standing in the hallway, ringed by the light from his camera, is Antonin Dolohov, of the Death Eaters.

“Talking to yourself in here, are you, Lupin?” Dolohov says, leaning against the doorway to watch him. Remus pulls against his ties again but they, predictably, don’t budge. Antonin Dolohov is a nasty piece of work, just as likely to strike in violence as he is to strike up a conversation. If Dolohov is here, other Death Eaters must be.

“Aw, come on, now.” Dolohov moves into the room, leaning in to crowd Remus against the chair. “So you’ll talk to the ghosties but not to me, a human being?”

“What are you even doing here?” Remus asks tightly, pressing himself as far back into the chair as he’s able.

Dolohov waves a hand noncommittally. “Snape has it out for your friends and we need the spiritual energy in this place for our leader.”

Remus freezes. “You  _ what? _ ”

“Oh, yeah, that bit’s supposed to be more secret.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Watched your episodes,” He changes the subject abruptly and smiles, toothy and menacing, nothing at all like Sirius’ grins. “Thought you looked familiar. Got a victim thing, huh?”

Wide-eyed, Remus breathes, “What do you mean?” He’s watched what they’ve uploaded, there isn’t enough information publicly available to come to the conclusions Lily had—“Where is everyone?” Remus asks suddenly, a little ashamed that it has taken him so long to remember the others.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Dolohov says, sounding entirely unconcerned. “I’m sure they’ll all be fine. Snape’s set up some sort of game, so we’re going to play.”

Before Remus can get another word in, Dolohov is dragging his chair back, further into the room, and he hears another person approaching from down the hall, preceded by heavy footfalls. Dolohov keeps talking.

“I’m sure you did your research like a good little ghost hunter,” he says, playing at getting his chair placed just so, scooting it this way and that, disorienting Remus more with each shift.

“Did you know,” Dolohov continues, stopping his administrations abruptly, “that there were prisoners placed here that didn’t go on record?”

Remus says nothing.

“Come on, not even a little curious? Some people were so high profile that media outlets reported them being interred to one location, but transferred them off the record. Do you want to know who came here? Who  _ died _ here, in the last riot that got this place shut down those fifteen years ago?”

The sinking feeling in his gut gets worse with every footstep towards his room, and Remus shakes his head.

“Well, ready or not, here he comes!” Dolohov says, showing his teeth in something barely a smile, stepping aside and gesturing with a dramatic flourish. The man who enters the room is big and hulking, fingernails filed into claws, teeth filed into fangs. Remus shakes his head harder, pulling and pulling at his restraints, unable to get out, to run.

Fenrir Greyback stands in front of him, entirely too real and solid to have died fifteen years prior. Dolohov approaches him to lay his hand on Greyback’s arm.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Dolohov says. “Famous serial killer Fenrir Greyback! In the flesh! How is this possible?” He grins at Remus. “With our Lord Voldemort, anything is possible.”

Remus would laugh at the ridiculous name if he weren’t too busy panicking.

Dolohov laughs, a wicked, taunting noise. “Greyback, do you see? Your last victim, the one you failed to kill! He’s a little all grown up now but it’s him, it’s little Remus Lupin, how lucky for you!” Greyback grins, all malice and pointed teeth, and Remus knows he’s trembling but he can’t do anything to stop it. He barely registers when Dolohov keeps talking.

“Now, I know you’re wondering where your precious friends are. That’s the other part of Snape’s plan. They’re currently trying to rescue Lily Evans. Lily Potter?” He shrugs. “We’ve separated you, Lupin, and Mrs. Potter. James and Sirius have to choose who they save! Genius, isn’t it. The whole time, you’re all stirring up the ghosties in one of the most haunted locations in the world, and we’re going to siphon up all this ambient energy.” He gestures to Greyback. “You’re already doing a great job!” 

Of course they’ll go after Lily, Remus thinks. She’s James’ wife, she’s carrying their baby, and he’ll never begrudge them the choice.

“Greyback, you’ll keep an eye on dear old Remus, here, won’t you? I have to go check on some things.”

Dolohov swans out of the room, leaving Remus alone with Greyback. For a long second, nothing happens, until suddenly Greyback is on top of him, in his face, a clawed hand gripping his neck but not choking. 

“Hello again, little Lupin,” he all but snarls in Remus’ ear. 

“How?” Remus breathes. His chair tips ever so slightly away, and Remus realizes that the spirit he had been communicating with is trying to help, but Greyback just crowds him further.

“This was a test, of sorts,” he says. “Needed to see if they could bind a spirit, or multiple spirits. Make ‘em manifest, make ‘em corporeal. See if they’ll do what they want.”

“What do they want?”

“Power. What else? It’s the only thing that matters. Feeling  _ powerful _ .” Greyback’s free hand traces the scarring across Remus’ face, claws scraping across the same paths they had all those years ago, when Greyback had targeted his family. He was young, only four years old, and his parents had told him to stay inside when it got dark. He’d left his little dog outside at the picnic table after lunch, though, and he needed it to sleep. He thought it would be fine, he was a big boy, he’d be out and back in so fast his parents wouldn’t know, he didn’t need to wake them. He got outside, he got his stuffed animal. He turns quickly to scurry back inside but something strikes him across his face and he screams, and that something hits him again—

All of a sudden, Sirius is barging into the room and Greyback isn’t there. Remus is shaking, and he feels something drop into his lap and realizes he’s crying. Sirius rushes to Remus, freeing him, and Remus surges forward into his arms.

“Moony, hey, you’re okay, everyone’s okay,” Sirius says, hands warm where they rub his back. “I’ve got you, Remus, you’re safe now.”

“Greyback,” Remus chokes out, unable to stifle his trembling. “Fenrir Greyback, he was here, he died here, Sirius, he was  _ here _ —”

“I believe you,” Sirius says, checking on his wrists where the bindings had rubbed the skin raw. He looks up to force eye contact. “Moony, listen to me, you need to breathe.”

Remus sucks in a shuddering breath, choking back his tears as Sirius’ voice grounds him in the present, in the prison. He follows Sirius’ instructions, pulling air desperately into his lungs as he calms, breathing turning regular to match the other man’s steady breaths.

Sirius very gently traces a fingertip down Remus’ nose, down across his scars, but pulls it back covered in blood.

“C’mon, Remus, we’re getting out of here. Can you walk?”

Remus nods, and as they get up to leave, he casts his eyes around the room. “Thank you,” he says, voice still shaking. Sirius looks confused but says nothing as Remus continues, “I know you were trying to help, and I’m sorry we brought these people here. Please, don’t stay in this place.”

“A friend?” Sirius asks, face somber.

Remus nods, and together they collect the equipment from the other room, Remus relieved to find his cellphone among it, and then retrace their steps back down that hallway all the way back to the lobby. Sirius is quiet and the walk long is enough to let Remus collect himself. Their base is half taken apart, and as they head out the front doors he sees James and Lily sitting together in the back of the van, hatchback open. She’s got a blanket over her shoulders and he’s holding her, and they look about as rough as Remus feels. When they notice him, however, they immediately get up to rush over to him, and he has to stifle his instinct to recoil.

“Remus!” James says. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Are you bleeding?” Lily says, reaching to touch his face. He flinches away from her, into Sirius, who ushers him into the back seat. He sits Remus sideways, facing the open door, and disappears for a moment. When he reappears, he’s got the first aid kit, and he quickly gets to work cleaning up Remus’ face. As he’s doing that, Remus finally gathers himself enough to really look at the other man.

Sirius is disheveled and filthy, covered in scratches and starting to show a bruise along his jaw. He’s still breathtakingly handsome, and Remus allows himself a few moments to just take it in. 

“All right, Moony?” Sirius asks quietly once he’s done. Remus gives a bit of a half shrug, but it apparently satisfies Sirius enough that he puts away the kit.

“What happened _? _ ” James asks. He and Lily have returned to their spot in the back.

“One second I’m setting up to start my questioning, the next I’m chasing a cloaked figure into a sort of security room,” Sirius says.

Unable to sit still, unwilling to let them see the way he’s shaking, Remus pulls himself out of the car. He ends up pacing opposite James and Lily. 

“I lost the feed from your hallway camera,” Lily says. “I asked Remus to check it out, and I lost connection to him. Peter thought maybe it was a signal jammer, so he went to go meet Remus to tell him to just come back, but before I could stop him all my equipment went dark.”

“I found the tripod on its side down one of the side halls, but when I stopped to get it someone ambushed me,” Remus says.

“That happened to me, too,” Lily says, then grimaces as she looks at Remus’ various marks and bruises. “Though I think they were less rough with me.”

They’re quiet for a minute while Remus tries to figure out how to talk about what happened to him, but James starts next.

“I didn’t know anything was going on,” he says. “I was just doing the hunt like normal. At least, I was until this one burst in a mess,” he gestures to Sirius, “I could barely understand what he was saying.”

“I thought I heard banging off where you were, Rem,” Sirius says, eyes on Remus. “I came back over to see if you were getting anything good but you weren’t there. Instead, some guy in a dark cloak was messing with the camera in the room you set up, so I yelled and chased him. He ran all the way over to where James was, and as a couple of his buddies roughed me up he pulled down his hood. It was  _ Peter _ . That’s how they kept tracking us!”

They’re all shocked at this revelation, but Remus remembers the look on his face earlier that night and it makes sense, suddenly. Peter wasn’t nervous only about the spirits, but about the impending betrayal. They’re going to need a new editor.

James continues talking, obviously having come to a similar conclusion and opting not to deal with it for now. “They roughed us both up, took our equipment, and locked us in a room for I don’t know how long,” James says. “Then they come in with a tablet, two video feeds playing, and tell us we have to make a decision.”

“So you save Lily, obviously,” Remus says, genuine.

“So I tell them that’s bullshit, obviously,” Sirius says. “Most of those guys have never been in a fight in their lives. So we split up. Most of them bolted before we could really get into it.”

Remus sinks to the ground, ending up seated cross-legged on the asphalt of the long driveway, head in his hands. “He told me you chose Lily. Which, obviously—”

“Who told you?” James asks.

“Dolohov. Antonin Dolohov.” Sirius sucks in a breath, but Remus keeps talking. “He said he had to ‘check on a few things’ so I bet he ended up wherever you were to try to stop you from ruining their plans.”

“We never saw him,” James says. “McNair and Lestrange were the ones with us, and Snape was with Lily.”

Lily laughs bitterly. “I’m lucky Snape still holds a flame for me. I got out with barely a scratch.”

Remus drops his hands, starts twisting his fingers around each other. He can feel their eyes on him.

“Remus, you don’t have to talk about it,” Sirius says gently.

“No, I-I want to, it’s just… it’s hard.” He pulls in a shuddering breath.

“What did you mean when you said Greyback was here?” Sirius asks carefully.

“I was—you know who Fenrir Greyback is, right?” he says, not lifting his head. He assumes they do. It’s the most famous serial killer case of their lifetime.

“The night they finally caught him, it was at my house.”

Lily gasps, and he does look up now. Her hands cover her mouth, and they all look vaguely ill. 

“That’s what your scars are from,” Sirius says. Remus nods.

“My parents didn’t allow the media to release our information. The scarring was hard enough to deal with as a kid, imagine being branded as the Wolf’s last target.” He goes quiet, rolling his thoughts around. 

“Remus, you should’ve said—your nickname, it’s so stupid—”

“I don’t mind, really,” Remus says earnestly. “It’s mine, and I don’t mind it.” He meets Sirius’ gaze, and for a second he feels so warm that the night fades away just a little.

“What,” Lily starts. “What’s Greyback have to do with what happened tonight?”

“He was here,” Remus says quietly.

“Here? What do you mean?” 

Remus stands back up, hugging his arms to himself, long legs taking him back and forth across the drive. “I mean—both then and now. He was transferred here off the books and he was here as a-a corporeal spirit, or something, I don’t know, it doesn’t make  _ sense _ !” He runs his hands through his hair. “Dolohov and Greyback both said something about power, that their ‘Lord Voldemort’ is trying to pull spiritual energy for-for something. Greyback was a test. He was  _ here. _ ”

Suddenly, Sirius is in his space again. He grabs ahold of Remus’ arm to stop his pacing. “Moony, we believe you. You were  _ bleeding _ , like something had scratched you. And you don’t get this spooked over nothing.”

Remus looks up, at James and Lily, who nod reassuringly, and then back at Sirius, who says, “C’mon. Let’s find a hotel to hunker down in tonight. Everything else can wait.”

“I would love to sleep in a bed,” Lily says. She comes over to take Remus’ hand, and he lets her pull him away from Sirius, to the back seat of the van. Once James settles into the passenger seat, Sirius navigates them back to town. The closer they get, the lighter Remus feels, and before he realizes, Lily is gently shaking him awake in the parking lot of a hotel.

He follows them into the building, bag in hand. Sirius turns to pass out room keys, but he only has two and Remus doesn’t get one. Confused, he looks to Sirius, but he just gestures for him to follow. He leads them to two adjoining rooms, and they split into pairs. James and Lily disappear into the left room, and Sirius leads the way to the right hand room.

“I figured nobody wanted to be alone tonight,” Sirius says as Remus finds a place for his bag. He heads over to the door connecting their two rooms and knocks, and he and James figure out how to prop it open so they can feel less separated.

By now, it’s creeping up on four in the morning, but no one is making any moves to go to bed. Lily breaks away to shower, and Remus decides to follow suit in the other bathroom. He feels much better after, and convinces Sirius to do the same, leaving him and James alone as he waits for Lily to come out.

“Hey, Remus,” James says with a half smile. “How’re you holding up?”

“Better,” Remus says, grimacing. “Are you okay? You and Lily and Sirius?”

“Lily’s mostly shaken up. Sirius and me’ll have some bumps and bruises. Snape got one good hit in, but he was the only one.” He pauses before adding, “I don’t think anyone will be alone on a hunt for a while.”

Remus laughs dryly. “Yeah, probably not.” 

“Do you want to order some pizza?” James asks. “Lily’s having a craving for green olives.”

“I’d rather eat than sleep,” Remus says. James leans over and claps him on the shoulder. Moments later Sirius comes out of the bathroom, and Remus leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, listening to them fight good-naturedly about toppings.

He’s dozing, in between waking and sleeping, when he hears a voice growl, “Little Lupin.” He jerks awake, sitting straight up, gasping for air. The room is dark, but the smell of pizza lingers, grounding him in the present. He takes several deep breaths to try to even out his breathing, and hears rustling in the bed furthest from him.

“Moony?” Sirius’ sleepy voice drifts over to him.

“It’s fine, Sirius, go back to sleep,” Remus whispers. He rolls his neck, body sore from the events of the night and sleeping in the chair.

“Mmno, Remus, I’m here if y’need,” Sirius mumbles, rolling over and pawing at his blankets.

“Sirius, no, I’m-it’s fine, go back to sleep, I’m just gonna move to the other bed.”

A pause. “Y’sure?”

“I’m sure,” Remus says.

Sirius settles, and Remus waits for his breathing to even out again before he pulls himself out of the chair to collapse into the bed, the digital clock telling him he’d only been dozing for a couple of hours.

He lays there, unable to fall back asleep. Every time he closes his eyes and starts to doze off again, sharp claws flash in his face and he startles, or his eyes play tricks on him in the dark and his adrenaline spikes. After an hour of this, he sighs and sits up. The late morning sun filters ever-so-slightly through the blackout curtains, granting him just enough light to see as he digs quietly through his bag. His change of clothes is under the camera he ignored last night, but as he pushes it aside, he realizes that this was his little static cam that filmed the whole encounter with Dolohov and Greyback. He didn’t realize he’d even put it in this bag. Is Greyback in the footage? Will the others be able to see? He digs around for his headphones and plugs them in, hands shaking as he plays back the footage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the part with the scene I first imagined when I started really writing this, when I thought "How would Greyback fit into this universe?" How, indeed.


	5. Breakfast and Editors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus gets a little one-on-one time with Sirius, and they talk about the job, of course. Remus introduces the Marauders to a couple of his old friends.

#  Chapter 5

Remus shakes Sirius awake.

“Mmmmoony? Whasup?” he says sleepily.

“Sirius, we got it on camera,” Remus says, hushed and hurried. “They left my camera on and Dolohov and Greyback are on the footage!”

Sirius sits up abruptly, rubbing at his face. “‘Kay, Rem, let’s see it,” he says, gesturing with a hand.

Remus hands it to him, watching nervously as Sirius puts the headphones in. He stands there for a second before he comes to sit next to Sirius, watching the footage over his shoulder. 

On the screen, Dolohov is shoving him, talking at him, the camera a little too far away to hear specific dialogue. Before long, though, heavy footsteps start thumping down the hallway. Remus starts to tremble no matter how hard he tries to stifle it. Sirius glances over at him and wraps an arm around Remus’ middle. His face warms, but it does wonders to ground him in the present, and the shaking subsides a bit. Sirius leans closer to the camera in his hands when Greyback appears on screen, and Remus is so relieved that he sees him that he forgets that he starts screaming when Greyback hits him. It turns out, Remus was so caught up in his flashback that he didn’t know Greyback had left the room, going the opposite direction from where Sirius came from.

Sirius puts the camera down and rotates a little to face Remus. “Fuck, Moony, how are you okay?”

Remus just shrugs a little helplessly. Then his stomach growls and he’s saved from trying to come up with something to say.

“Oh yeah, you fell asleep before the pizza came last night,” Sirius says. He glances at his phone for the time, then looks over into James and Lily’s room, where they’re both still asleep.

“What do you think about going out for breakfast?” Sirius says. 

They gather themselves and venture out into the morning, looking only a little disheveled. Before long they reach the little diner Sirius had looked up on his phone. It’s still early enough that there’s only one other person in the dining room, so they’re seated immediately by a chipper high-schooler who fills the table mugs with coffee and leaves them to their menus.

“All I want is bacon,” Sirius says, looking over the options.

“And potatoes,” Remus says, nodding.

“And potatoes!” Sirius echoes. “Hmmm.”

When the waitress returns a few minutes later, they place their orders, and she leaves them looking at each other awkwardly. At least, Remus feels awkward. He didn’t think about the fact that going out for breakfast equaled he and Sirius sitting alone together.

Sirius leans back in his chair as Remus cradles his coffee and tries to think of something to say. Sirius, however, speaks first.

“Moony, why did you apply for the job? I know we asked you that in your interview-thing we did, but I don’t think ‘looking for something new’ really cuts it when the going gets this tough.”

Remus keeps his eyes on his coffee, only glancing at Sirius quickly here and there. “I was tired of the office jobs and wanted to do something more exciting,” Remus says. 

Sirius grins, but the look in his eyes is calculating. “‘More exciting’ doesn’t usually mean diving head first into potential ghostly danger.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a ghost hunter?” Remus tries.

Sirius just lifts an eyebrow, sipping from his own mug.

Remus clears his throat. “I uh, I’ve actually been fans of yours since you first started uploading to YouTube,” he says, wincing as Sirius sits up quickly and sets down his mug a little too hard, coffee sloshing into the table.

“Since our  _ first upload _ ? And you’re still here?” Sirius says, incredulous as Remus pulls some napkins out of the dispenser to clean up the spill.

“I-yes,” Remus says, watching the coffee spread into the white paper.

“You could’ve started your own channel or something and you came to us?”

“...yes?”

“Well, damn, we’re lucky to have you,” Sirius says, leaning back again and crossing his long legs. “No wonder you’re so good at this, if you’ve been learning alongside us all these years.” He’s quiet for a second, thinking. “What do you think is our weakest episode?”

It’s Remus’ turn to look incredulous, but Sirius gestures for him to go ahead. “It’s a cheap shot to name one of the early ones,” Remus starts slowly. “And those are some of my favorites, even without the acquired technical knowledge you have now. And it’s not necessarily one with limited recorded activity, because you’ve had good episodes regardless. No, I think the weakest is when you visited Azkaban, in season… five? I think you only traveled to that location because you felt pressured. It was very unguided and seemed overall somewhat messy, and since then you haven’t gone to a poll-chosen place you weren’t truly excited about.”

Sirius is watching him with a look Remus can’t quite parse, but his face breaks into a smile and Remus relaxes. A hand claps his shoulder from across the table’s distance and Sirius says, “You really do know your stuff.”

Luckily for Remus, their waitress chooses this moment to bring their food over, and conversation is left by the wayside as they both start eating. Before long, they’re scraping their plates clean, but Remus is ready for this lull in conversation.

“You know,” he says. “I think I know some people who could take over editing for you?”

“Oh yeah,” Sirius says, eyes dark. “Peter.”

“Yeah,” Remus says, frowning. “I can’t believe he was working with the Death Eaters. He’s been with you guys since almost the beginning.”

“Doesn’t matter. He showed his hand, so we need an editor.”

“I know a couple women who have a good instinct for parsing videos,” Remus offers. “If you want, I can pass along their information? They work as a team, though.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sirius says, waving his hand. “We have enough in earnings to keep everyone paid. If they’re good enough to get your endorsement, I’m willing to talk to them at least. You’re sure they’d be interested?”

“Oh, yes,” Remus says, smiling. “Dorcas loves this kind of stuff and Marlene loves Dorcas, so.”

“We’ll run it by James and Lily later but I don’t see why they’d have a problem with it. Speaking of editing, though,” Sirius says, looking him in the eye. “How much of the footage we captured would you be willing to use?”

Oh. “Oh, I-I think whatever we have would be pretty valuable?” Remus starts. “We didn’t capture a lot. You’ll need what you can get to fill time.”

“No, Remus, that’s not what I asked. What are you comfortable with posting, on the internet, where potentially millions of people will see it?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Okay. We’ll check with James and see what he recorded, and ask Lily if she was able to get anything on the camera downstairs. We’ll definitely bring up the ambush, and our fans will understand if it’s a shorter episode, like they have before when those bastards’ve shown up. Don’t feel obligated to include anything you don’t want to.”

“Thanks,” Remus says. “How’re you holding up? After everything?”

Sirius waves him off. “I’m only mad that I didn’t get to punch Dolohov in his stupid bastard face.”

Remus snorts, and Sirius smiles at him. “I’m glad you’re doing better,” Sirius continues. “Even without the threat of Dolohov, that flashback looked really rough, and it was probably fuckin’ awful to see Greyback in the flesh—or, well, whatever he was.”

Remus runs a finger around the edge of his empty plate. “This helped,” he says quietly.

“Good!” Sirius says, smile blinding. Remus returns it, albeit a little less brightly, and then Sirius’ phone starts ringing.

“It’s Prongs,” Sirius says, answering it. “Heya, Jamie! Yes, Remus is with me, no we weren’t kidnapped again. We went out for breakfast since he didn’t get to eat last night. Yes, he’s doing okay.” Remus feels his face heat, oddly pleased that he’s being asked after. “Do you want to talk to him? Yes, we’re almost done. Okay! We’ll be back soon. Does Lily want us to bring anything back? It’s delicious, greasy diner food. Okay, I can’t-you’ll have to text that to me, and you’ll have to wait another twenty minutes. Okay. See you soon, Jamie.”

Remus stifles a laugh at Sirius’ exasperated expression. “We’ll be here a little longer, I’m assuming?” he says.

“Yeah, probably forever.” He turns his phone to show Remus the list Lily texted to him. “Look at this!”

“Well, she is eating for two,” Remus says reasonably with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sirius says, grinning as he waves down their waitress. He places the order to go and gives her a hefty tip, and she refills their coffee before leaving them alone again.

“Why didn’t you say anything about being a fan?” Sirius asks.

“I thought you wouldn’t take me seriously,” Remus answers honestly. “I figured you had to filter through more than enough applications from people who thought they were qualified just because they liked to watch your videos.”

“And you thought you were different?” Sirius asks good-naturedly, grinning.

“I mean, I guess I did? I did a lot of independent research and actually learned about all the stuff you guys were doing. I wasn’t applying just because I wanted to hang out with the Marauders.”

“Paid off,” Sirius says. “You’re  _ one _ of the Marauders now. Haven’t you seen the comments that’ve been rolling in?”

“Oh, did the next episode go up?”

“Yeah, and the fans love you.”

Remus blushes and looks out the window.

“Do you want to keep doing it?” Sirius says. “I’d understand if you wanted to leave. I won’t be angry or upset if you wanted to turn around and go home and never worry about ghosts, or serial killers, or Death Eaters ever again.”

Remus is already shaking his head, smiling softly. “You said it yourself. I’m a Marauder now.”

Sirius smiles widely, but the moment is interrupted as their waitress brings them their to-go bags and a drink carrier. They thank her and trek the two blocks back to their hotel.

———

Sirius lets them back into their room where James and Lily are waiting, surrounded by some equipment they must’ve pulled out of the van.

“We come bearing breakfast!” Sirius announces as he deposits his bag on the desk. “Also, I tried to get rid of this one, but he’s sticky. And I needed him to carry the rest of your food.” He winks at Remus, who smiles and lets Lily take the drink carrier from him so he has room to set down the other bag.

“What’re you two working on?” Remus asks, looking curiously at the screens.

“We’re trying to see what footage we’ve got,” Lily says through a mouthful of pancake.

“Anything good?” Sirius asks, leaning over James’ shoulder. 

“Yeah, actually,” James says. “I got a couple really cool EVPs, and Lily’s stationary picked up this really weird shadow on the walkway above her.” He points to a spot on the screen for Sirius.

“You can use some of mine,” Remus says where he’s pulling James’ food from the bags. He picks up his camera as he brings it over.

“Did you get something before everything went down?” James asks. “Oh, thanks,” he says as Remus hands him both things.

“You… might not want to be eating when you watch it,” Sirius says slowly. Remus ducks his head. 

“We’ll worry about it after we eat,” Lily says firmly.

“Oh!” Sirius says. “Remus knows some people who could edit videos for us, since, you know, Peter’s a dirty traitor.”

There’s a beat of silence before James says, “Okay. If he says they’re worth it, I trust him.” 

Remus smiles to himself. He shoots a text to Dorcas, asking if she’s interested, and she texts back a confirmation almost immediately, so he feels okay giving Sirius her business number and professional email.

Sirius starts telling Remus about something that had happened to him and James when they were in college, but he keeps laughing too hard to finish the story. Remus is smiling, captivated nonetheless.

“All right, that’s enough, he doesn’t need to hear the end of that one,” James says, shoving the empty food containers back into the bag. “Give me Remus’ camera. Lils, come over here so we don’t have to torture Remus while everybody watches it one at a time.”

“Moony, why don’t we go down to the van and take inventory?” Sirius says.

“What-oh,” Remus says, appreciative for the chance to not be in the room for this. “Okay.” The two of them leave James and Lily to it and head back downstairs. 

“They already inventoried everything, didn’t they,” Remus says, not even really asking as they settle into the front seats of the van.

“Yeah,” Sirius says. “Figured you didn’t want to sit around again while they watched it.

“Thanks,” Remus says.

“Have you thought about what you wanted to include?”

“Ah, unfortunately, I think every instance of spiritual activity was tied to either Dolohov or Greyback. It was trying to pull me away from them.”

“What, really?”

Remus nods.

“I was a little preoccupied by the threat to your life, I guess, to notice that something else was happening.”

He grimaces. “Yeah,” he says, voice tight. “When James and Lily are finished we can load it onto a laptop and I can cut out the relevant bits.”

“I’ll help,” Sirius says. “I want to see what you’re talking about.” 

“They put me in the cell where the wardens tortured the innocent prisoners,” Remus says, looking down at his hands. “It, understandably, stirred up the spirits there, and one of them was keeping me company and even pushed the chair I was tied to.”

“That’s incredible,” Sirius says.

“I-yeah, it was, honestly,” Remus says. “Under different circumstances it would’ve been amazing.” 

A knock on Sirius’ window startles them both, and Sirius opens his door to bump James with it. “Jesus, Jamie! Warn a guy!”

“Sorry! I thought you saw me coming,” James says, not even trying to stifle his smile. “We’re ready to load up and head back to the office.”

“Finally,” Sirius ribs. “Load the footage from Remus’ camera onto the laptop so we can start picking it apart on the drive back.”

James looks at him but after a second agrees, and once they get everything packed in and they check out of the hotel, Sirius piles into the back with Remus. They balance the laptop between them, sharing the earbuds. 

Remus’ hands shake as he fast-forwards to the part where he wakes up in the chair. He’s too far away from the camera to hear what he’s saying, but it’s easy to see that he  _ is _ talking. He leans over to point. “Here, he bumps my chair when I ask him to confirm his presence.”

“Yeah, there is definitely obvious movement there,” Sirius says, watching intently.

“And then the next time it happens…” he trails off as he fast-forwards some more, grimacing through Dolohov and Greyback’s sped-up introduction, up to the point where Greyback gets in his face. He plays through it normally, notes the point where the hulking man leans in and then leans further.

“I think he’s blocking the chair tipping,” Remus says as Sirius replays those few seconds.

“No, it’s definitely in there,” Sirius says, pointing to where the chair can be seen over Greyback’s shoulder. The man rushes him, and then the chair tips separate from his movement, and in the following second he follows the movement.

“I think we could frame these as part of the ambush without mentioning his identity,” Sirius says.

“I think I’d prefer that,” Remus says, watching as the footage keeps playing and Sirius rushes over to him. He doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed about the way he clings to Sirius, considering Sirius seems to be holding him just as tightly. As they leave the room, approaching the camera, there’s a figure they leave behind that very obviously doesn’t have legs. Remus nudges Sirius’ arm, pointing excitedly.

“Look! He’s-It’s--”

“Hell yeah!” Sirius says, raising his voice for James and Lily. “We got ourselves a full-bodied apparition, baby!”

“Really?” Lily asks, turning to look at them.

Sirius shows her the screen and she cheers.

“Good one, Remus!” she says, smiling at him.

“I didn’t really do anything,” Remus says bashfully. 

“You made the connection,” Sirius says. “Look at him!” Sirius mock-punches him in the arm. “This is the best footage we have. Your editing team has gold to work with.”

“Tell us about this editing team,” James says, glancing at them in the rear view.

“Dorcas Meadowes and her girlfriend Marlene McKinnon,” Remus says. “I met them at a summer desk job a few years ago. We all dabbled in video production as a hobby, and they were both incredible at it. They were able to quit long before I could, struck out on their own as content editors. They’re between jobs right now, though, since the idiot they were working for dropped them so he could hire a friend of his.”

“What’re their rates?” Lily asks.

“They’re used to getting maybe half of what you’re paying me,” Remus says.

“ _ Seriously? _ ” James says. “That’s not nearly enough for a good editor.”

“I know,” Remus says. “And, on top of that, Dorcas loves this kind of stuff. She’s always watching those ‘Top 5 Scariest’ ghost video compilations.”

“Sounds good for us,” Sirius says. “We will definitely be giving them a call. And a decent paycheck.”

“It’ll be nice to have other women around, too,” Lily says, smiling.

“I promise, you’re going to love them,” Remus says. “And their work.”

———

He gets to be there two days later when Dorcas and Marlene show up for their interview. They told him since he’s officially a Marauder, he gets a say in the hiring process, but he waived his responsibility for that on the grounds that he’s way too biased.

“Remus!” Dorcas says warmly as she gets out of the car and runs to him.

“Hi, Dory,” Remus says, laughing as he catches her.

“Your hair is so much longer than before!” Dorcas says, pulling at it gently where her arms meet behind his head.

Marlene follows much more sedately, but is obviously just as happy to see him. “Heya, Remus,” she says, taking Dorcas’ hand as the smaller woman finally frees him from her grasp.

“Hi, Marlene.” He smiles. “Glad to finally be free of that vlogger guy?”

She groans. “Job security is a bitch. But yes, he was an obnoxious entitled brat and I’m glad to be rid of him.” She looks at him, then drops Dorcas’ hand to grab his, running her fingers over the marks on his wrist. “What’ve  _ you _ been up to, Remus?”

“It’s… a long story.” Dorcas pats his arm gently. “You’ll probably see later if you accept the job.”

She scoffs but smiles, and he leads them into the office, waving a greeting to Mrs. Figg at the front, to where James and Sirius are waiting, looking entirely too professional, considering.

“Dorcas Meadowes and Marlene McKinnon,” he says, indicating which is which.

“Hello, ladies,” James says pleasantly. “Please have a seat.”

They sit next to each other on the offered couch, and Remus sits in a chair a little off to the side to watch the proceedings.

“Remus already passed along the varied portfolio of your work,” James says. “Honestly, we’re ready to hire you on the spot.” Dorcas and Marlene look at each other, surprised, and then look to Remus. He shrugs, equally taken aback. James keeps going. “You’re good with multiple points of view, you have a good eye for what to focus on, your sound mixing is professional level. You have practical technical experience. We’d love to have you.”

“We just want to make sure you know what you’d be signing up for,” Sirius says, serious, and Remus understands.

“We’d be on hand at locations for tech. Ghosts, spirits, hauntings, right?” Dorcas says.

“Not just that,” Remus says quietly. The two women look at him.

“What happened to you, Remy?” Dorcas asks.

“This past weekend, we got ambushed,” Remus says. “By people, not spirits. Well—people  _ and _ spirits, but—I don’t know how much you know about the channel?”

“We know enough,” Dorcas says. 

“The Death Eaters,” Sirius says. “They roughed us up, tied up Remus, sicced a spirit on him, kidnapped James’ pregnant wife.” Sirius looks them in the eyes. “We can’t always guarantee your safety.”

Dorcas and Marlene look at each other, communicating silently.

“We’d like to take this opportunity regardless,” Dorcas says with a smile. Remus beams, and James and Sirius look pleased.

“Perfect! When can you start?” James asks.

“Immediately,” Marlene says. “Seriously, we were getting bored. Give us some footage, we’ll show you what we can do.”

“I don’t doubt it,” James says. “Remus?”

“Come on,” Remus says, standing. “We have an office you can use and everything.”

He leads them past Peter’s old office and into a bigger one, with room for the both of them. Marlene whistles at the setup. 

“Damn, we owe you, Remus. Not only a hefty paycheck, but we get to work with this? I could kiss you.”

“How did you convince them to hire us, Remy?” Dorcas asks.

“I didn’t have to do much convincing, honestly. Our last editor sold us out and then ran off over the weekend, so we were desperate and you’re incredibly talented and had an open schedule.” He smiles at them. “We’ve already ported everything onto the system, so I’ll leave you to get settled and play around a bit. Lily will be here soon to meet you.”

They thank him again, which he waves off, and he heads back to the main office to see James and Sirius.

“They’re great,” Sirius says as soon as he’s in the room.

“Seriously, Remus, they’re so talented. We’re lucky they were free to work with us,” James says.

“Are you okay with them seeing what happened?” Sirius asks.

“Dorcas already knows about my tragic backstory,” Remus says with a wry smile. “I’m pretty sure she’s talked to Marlene about it.”

“All right,” James says. “I wanted to ask you something else, too. Would you be up for another investigation this weekend? I know it’s kind of soon but I figure we can do another high-profile location when the Death Eaters least expect us to be out again.”

“That makes sense,” Remus says. He pauses for a second, taking stock of himself, then says, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Are you sure, Moony?” Sirius asks. 

“Yeah,” Remus says. “I was excited about filming at the prison. Nervous, but excited.”

“And they ruined it,” Sirius says. “Back on the horse, right?”


	6. Witch's Hut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another high profile investigation leads to an exhausting night for Remus. Things get a little too exciting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is another content warning for this chapter, this time for mentions and brief descriptions of domestic abuse. Take care of yourselves!

Remus sits in the back of the van between Dorcas and Marlene, explaining to them what they needed to do while they were on location. It’s not much, since there’s three of them to do the investigation and Lily is running supporting tech, but Remus gives them a bit of rundown anyway. Their first location shoot and they’re staying the night, Remus thinks. Hopefully this time it’s only haunting scares.

They’re coming up on the infamous Witch’s Hut. It’s a small building, only two rooms and a cellar, but every ghost hunting team that visits here never makes it through the night. It’s small enough that they can stick close to each other, but promises enough activity that they’ll be occupied well into the night.

Dorcas and Marlene start setting up the outside tent according to Lily’s instruction, and Remus joins James and Sirius as they set up their chairs in front of the building for the intro.

“We’re sitting in front of the Witch’s Hut, the site of a very Beauty-and-the-Beast-style narrative,” Sirius starts.

“The story here is that the woman who lived here practiced a kind of sorcery, and the nearby village shunned her,” James continues. “She ends up saving a man’s life when he gets lost in the woods, but the villagers believe she bewitched him. They come to destroy her, but she curses them. As they burn her in her own home, they themselves burn, and the building remains untouched.”

“What we know to be fact,” Remus says. “Is that a woman did live here, and it is believed that she did practice some sort of witchcraft or hedge magic. Probably an herbalist of some kind. She did die here, from a small fire that scorched one part of the front room and nothing else.”

“We’re not the first team to come here, and we probably won’t be the last,” Sirius says, grinning. “This spot was second-most requested, so we’re going to oblige a second time, since the last time turned into such a disaster.”

“All right, Marauders, let’s go,” James says. 

They wrap the intro, and the ladies are finished setting up base, so they reconvene, getting the cameras rolling. 

“Are you sure you’ll be okay out here?” Lily is asking the editing team.

“We’ll be fine,” Marlene says. “We’ll hold down the fort so you have a place to come out to if you need a breather.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay coming in with us?” Sirius asks Lily.

“I want to,” Lily says. James takes her hand. “It shouldn’t hurt anything, and it won’t be for very long. I miss getting in on the action.”

“She’ll stay in the front lawn near the entryway, and we’ll keep an eye on her,” Dorcas says.

“I’ll be in the front of the house, right nearby,” James says. “Once Lily wraps up her portion, I’ll move to the back room.”

“We’ll be starting in the cellar,” Sirius says to Remus and the camera. “We’ll meet James in the back of the house and that’s where we’ll sleep tonight.” 

Remus nods, and they gather up their gear and move towards the house. Lily stops to set up in the doorway, but as they cross the threshold, Remus feels the air get thicker, almost.

“Oof,” James says. Remus agrees, and after a short pause to drop off some of James’ equipment with him, he and Sirius continue on to the cellar.

“Careful,” Sirius says. “It’s steep.”

He leads the way down, camera first, but Remus stops a few steps from the bottom.

“You okay, Moony?” Sirius asks, turning his camera on him.

Remus lets out a long breath. “Yeah,” He says. “Feels weird down here.”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. They quickly get set up, two static cams covering the entirety of the room, then sit on the floor across from each other, close enough that their knees touch.

Remus doesn’t get a chance to feel awkward because they hear James kick on the spirit box upstairs. “The walls are thin,” Remus comments.

“Might interfere a little,” Sirius says. “If we can hear the spirit box so clearly it's going to contaminate our audio.”

“We’ll have to rely on visuals down here while he’s running that,” Remus says.

“Okay. If anyone is down here with us, please give us some sort of sign,” Sirius calls. 

They hear James talking over the static, but can’t parse actual words. They glance at each other when they hear answers from the spirit box.

“ _ Someone’s _ here,” Sirius says.

“Whoever is upstairs talking to James, can you show us something down here?” Remus says. 

Sirius jerks around to lean on Remus, who immediately puts his hands out to steady him. “Something just pinched me!” Sirius says. “Ow, that was rude!”

“Uh, thank you for letting us know about your presence,” Remus says. “But we're not here to cause you any grief. We just wanted to know what happened to you.”

They sit and wait for a few moments, and Sirius sits back up. “Ouch,” he hisses, jerking back up. “ _ Stop _ pinching me.”

“Do you want to go back upstairs?” Remus asks, voice low. 

“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt that much, it’s just frustrating. Lily’s not done yet.”

“Okay,” Remus says, then lifts his voice again. “Who’s down here with us, that keeps hurting him? I’m asking you to stop.”

They’re quiet for another few seconds when Remus is overwhelmed with emotions that aren’t his and he reaches out to grab at Sirius. 

“Moony?”

Remus shakes his head, trying to keep it together. He feels frantic, panicked, and while the feeling isn’t foreign to him, its source seems to be. Sirius takes hold of his wrists as Remus grasps at his shirt.

The spirit box upstairs goes quiet.

Remus lets go of Sirius with a shuddering breath. “Sorry,” he mutters, wiping at his eyes.

“You okay?” Sirius asks, concerned.

“I think so,” he says. “I was… freaking out. Or,  _ I _ wasn’t.”

“Let me go get the spirit box from Prongs,” Sirius says. “I’ll be right back.” He stands, resting a hand on Remus’ shoulder on his way past.

Remus hears them talking upstairs and keeps taking deep breaths, trying to stave off the tears he can still feel threatening. He rubs his face and leans forward, and feels Sirius lay a hand on his back as he comes back past him. 

He sits up and leans into it as he turns to ask Sirius how James is faring, but the room behind him is empty. He scrambles backwards away from his spot as he hears Sirius coming back down.

“Remus?” Sirius says as he notices Remus isn’t where he left him. He rushes into the room, relaxing only when he sees Remus sitting on the other side, more or less unharmed.

“Someone touched me,” Remus says.

“Did it pinch you too?” Sirius asks.

Remus shakes his head. “No, it was gentle. Friendly, more intimate than aggressive.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, it just threw me.”

“Why am  _ I _ getting pinched?” Sirius says. “C’mon, what the hell! Who’s down here?”

“Sirius?” Remus calls. Sirius doesn’t answer, which makes him nervous. 

“Why don’t you show yourself!” Sirius yells. 

Remus starts to get to his feet, worried about Sirius’ sudden aggression, but he feels a hand brush his hair from his face and he sits back down, hard.

“Sirius!” Remus shouts.

“ _ What? _ ” Sirius says, rounding on him.

Remus flinches, and Sirius immediately looks apologetic. “Sorry, Moony, that was—”

“Unlike you, yeah,” Remus says. “I think we should go back upstairs.”

“Okay,” Sirius says, helping him up. 

They climb the stairs, Sirius following Remus, and come up on James and Lily. They part with a quick kiss, and Lily heads back outside. They quickly fill James in on the events that just transpired for them downstairs. 

“All I got up here was a rehash of what we’ve seen in other investigations. “‘Get out,’ ‘witch,’ and so on and so on,” James says. “Your experiences seem new, so that’s promising! Let’s get ready to bunk in.”

They file into the back room, getting the static cams set up first, then their sleeping bags. They all settle in, sitting in their respective spots, just a couple of feet of space between them.

“Hey,” Remus says, finally voicing something he’s been thinking about. “What do you think this room was?”

“I think it was like a den or living room,” James says. “Based on the remnants of furniture in past photos.”

“And the front room was a kitchen area,” Remus says.

“Yes?” James says hesitantly.

“Maybe downstairs wasn’t a cellar,” Remus says slowly.

“Okay,” Sirius says. “So if it’s a bedroom, why is that significant?”

“Emotions run pretty high in bedrooms,” Remus says. “Your bedroom is like a safe space. Until you let someone in, and share that space.”

“What’s going on in that brain of yours, Moony?” Sirius asks.

“I’m wondering who was so upset, and who was so angry.”

They all go quiet for a few moments, mulling it over.

“When you were yelling, Sirius, I got really nervous,” Remus says. He waves off Sirius’ apologies. “It wasn’t me, I don’t think. But when you didn’t answer me the first time, I started to get up to see if I could, I don’t know, pull you back upstairs. Someone brushed my hair back from my face, and I ended up back on the ground.”

“So that’s twice someone was sweet on you,” James says.

“What if… what if it’s the same spirit? Making you angry, Sirius, but apologizing with soft gestures?” Remus says.

“I think you’re onto something, Moony,” Sirius says darkly. “Obviously it’s not usually that quick of a turnaround, but that’s standard in a cycle of abuse.”

“Do you think the woman who lived here was trapped with this guy she saved?” Remus asks.

“Everyone thought she was a witch, it would be easy to manipulate that into something,” Sirius says.

“Is she the one who’s so upset?” James asks. “A victim of abuse and then attacked by townspeople fed a false story?”

“I’d cry,” Remus says quietly.

“Well, yeah, you kinda did,” Sirius says. Remus chucks an empty camera bag at him.

“So, okay, the new narrative we’ve crafted, which,” he turns specifically to address the camera, “this is all theorizing, so we still don’t know what actually happened.” He turns back to the other two. “She’s isolated and vilified, right. She helps this guy who’s lost in the woods, she falls for him, he’s an asshole, manipulates her, abuses her, and then, what, gets bored of her and sics the town on her?”

Remus’ chest tightens and he feels like he’s going to cry again. “We’d like to try to help,” he calls to the room, voice choked.

“Remus?” Sirius says, scooting over to him. “Shit.” He sniffs, and Remus feels tears that aren’t his land on his knee, where Sirius had been leaning over to check on him.

“Oh good, we found the overlap of your empathy,” James says a touch sarcastically. 

Sirius reaches over to smack at him, his other hand rubbing at his face. “Shut up, Prongs.”

Remus finally puts it together, a little ashamed that it took him this long after the doll house, but whereas he connects with ghosts who were victims, Sirius connects with ghosts who were victims of abuse. Now Lily’s comment of their empathy “sharing a line” makes sense.

Remus reaches out to put a hand on Sirius’ arm and receives a bright, if watery, smile in return.

“You guys hanging in there?” James asks sincerely.

Remus nods, and Sirius grabs at James. “Get over here, Jamie. Why’re we laying so far apart. That’s stupid.”

“Maybe Remus doesn’t want us in his space,” James says, holding himself out of Sirius’ reach.

“I’m already in Moony’s space!” Sirius says, making a dive for him. He crows in victory as he grabs James around the ankles and starts pulling. “Get… over here!” he says, tense with effort and giggling. “Moony! Help!”

Remus can’t do anything but laugh as they wrestle, dodging out of the way as they get particularly rowdy. James finally concedes and settles in on Sirius’ other side, and the three of them lay there, panting for breath but feeling lighter than they have all night. 

Exhausted in the late hour after travelling and investigating, they check in with the ladies outside and settle in to sleep. Remus doesn’t even have time to feel awkward about Sirius laying so close to him before he’s out.

———

Remus jerks awake with a burst of adrenaline. He lays there for a second, reorienting himself as he remembers their location. He listens to Sirius and James breathe, figuring he had a nightmare he doesn’t remember, when he hears footsteps in the front of the house. Fear spikes through his gut as he sits up, straining to see or hear what’s going on.

The footsteps approach them, but there’s no figure attached. Remus listens as they stomp past their sleeping bags and keep going, on down to the cellar/bedroom.

Remus lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as the noise fades, flopping back down onto his back. He closes his eyes to try to get some more sleep. He’s just dozing off when he hears a strange noise to his side. He opens his eyes, confused, trying to figure out what it is.

He looks over to Sirius, who is still asleep, but it seems like James might be having a nightmare, the way he’s thrashing around. Remus crawls over to James, and his heart sinks and panic lodges in his throat as he realizes James is awake, but struggling with something, and the noise Remus was hearing is James choking.

“James!” Remus says, trying to figure out what he can do. He’s scrabbling at his throat, as if something is there, and the only thing Remus can think to do is drag James out of the house, away from the influence of whatever is here. By now, Sirius has been abruptly pulled out of his deep sleep, confused and disoriented and panicked.

“Remus, what’s wrong with him?” he yells.

“Help me get him outside,” Remus says. “I don’t think he can breathe!”

It’s much easier with Sirius to help, and Remus finds himself pleading under his breath with someone, anyone, to leave James alone. As they pass from the back room to the front, almost to the front door, James pulls in a deep, gasping breath and starts coughing.

“Oh thank God,” Sirius says, pulling James to him.

James pats him, letting Sirius hold him up as he gets his breath back and starts breathing normally.

Remus crosses his arms, holding himself tightly, so thankful that he had been awake.

“Thank you, Remus,” James croaks. He clears his throat. “I’m pretty sure you saved my life.”

Remus shakes his head as Sirius grips his arm. “I’m just glad I noticed it happening.”

“Yeah, me too. I think I’d rather finish the night in the van. We can talk out there.”

Sirius and Remus nod, and they all file through the room, but when Remus goes to push the door open it doesn’t budge. He shoves it harder, progressing to slamming himself against it, but not even the combined efforts of him and Sirius can get it to open.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Sirius says. “Let us out!

“Sirius,” Remus says quietly. “Please don’t shout.”

“You can’t keep us in here!” Sirius yells.

“Sirius!” James says. “Cool it! Stop aggravating them.”

Sirius is breathing hard, but throws himself to the floor next to James with a noise of frustration.

“One of the people who lived in the village tried to help the woman who lived here,” James says quietly. Sirius and Remus snap their attention to him. “The man who lived here killed him. Choked the life right out of him.”

“That’s-is that what happened?” Remus asks.

James nods. “He’s stuck here too.”

Remus shudders. “I can’t imagine…” he trails off.

“What’s our next move, boys?” Sirius says, running his hands through his hair.

“It’s probably safe to assume that the man is the one who’s keeping us here,” Remus says. The other two nod. “She never escaped.” His breathing accelerates, quick with panic. “She died here. He  _ killed _ her.”

“Moony, hey,” Sirius says, moving in front of him to gently grab his wrists. “We’re not going to die here.”

“James almost did!” Remus cries. He can feel himself getting hysterical but he can’t stifle it, and it’s coupled with a nausea that’s slowly building in his gut.

“You helped me,” James says. He’s calm, talking gently but firmly. “We aren’t alone, right? We’re sticking together, we’ll be fine.”

Remus takes a few shuddering breaths, feeling close to tears yet again. There’s a pause before Sirius pulls him close, tucking him under his chin. Remus relaxes some, basking in the comfort, stomach flopping for more than one reason.

“I promise, we’ll get out of here,” Sirius says firmly. “It’s only a few hours till daylight, and the girls will come get us.”

James moves closer to rub Remus’ back, warm and reassuring. 

“I’m sorry,” Remus says, feeling foolish, pressed against Sirius. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Oh, it’s definitely an attachment,” Sirius says, a small grin on his face as Remus pulls back. “It’s okay, I don’t think it’s necessarily negative.”

“I doubt it’ll go beyond this building, though, so you don’t have to worry too much about long-term,” James adds.

“Nausea, too?” Sirius asks.

Remus nods, rubbing at his face. A steady, deep breath helps him center himself enough that he can think.

“Okay,” Remus says. “Okay. So what do we do for the next few hours?”

“What we’re  _ not _ going to do,” James says, looking pointedly at Sirius, “is agitate the guy that means us harm.”

Sirius holds up his hands. “Okay!”

“At the very least, it’s upsetting Remus,” James says. “Every time you get louder, the spirit attached to him makes him cry, so, let’s not do that anymore.”

Remus ducks his head, embarrassed, but Sirius says, “Sorry, Moony.”

Remus shakes his head, but they’re interrupted by stomping coming up the stairs from the level below and they quickly get to their feet. Terror spikes through Remus’ chest, and James notices the change in his expression and pulls him behind him and Sirius as they quietly back off to the side, further into the kitchen area.

Trembling, Remus hides behind them, clutching at James’ shirt as he tries to get a handle on his emotions. The footsteps pass through the house, heading towards them and the front door, then disappear. After a long second, James and Sirius relax.

“Whoa,” James says. “It’s freezing in this corner.” Sirius reaches out to feel as James looks around. Remus, however, feels like he’s overheating as he stands on the scorch marks in the brick floor.

“I’m-I-I need to get out of this room,” Remus says breathlessly. 

Sirius immediately grabs his arm to pull him back into the back room. “You’re sweating, Remus,” he says in disbelief as James follows them, looking concerned. “That room got ice-cold—hey, stay with me here.”

Remus is swaying on his feet, suddenly bone-deep exhausted. “Sorry, I’m okay. Just-just tired.”

“Okay, just sit down before you fall over.”

Remus slips to the floor more than makes the conscious decision to sit, and James and Sirius follow him down, holding him up. He can hear them talking quietly over his head but can’t focus on anything long enough to figure out what they’re saying. Something about Sirius having something bad. Remus hopes he’s not sick or anything. He drifts off where he’s leaning, tucked against Sirius’ side. 

———

He dozes for he doesn’t know how long, but when he opens his eyes again he’s still leaning on Sirius, with James out of sight. He groans.

“Hey, Moony,” Sirius says softly. “Back with us?”

He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. His head is pounding. “I feel hungover,” he mutters.

Sirius nods. “It is kind of like that,” he says, a little reminiscent.

“Oh, hey, Remus is awake,” James says, reappearing from behind Sirius somewhere. Dark hand-shaped bruises ring his neck.

“What’s going on?” Remus asks.

“You’ve got a bit of an attachment,” Sirius says. “I figured it would be you or me, the way emotions were running wild.”

“The lady of the house is sort of using you,” James says. “It’s not a possession, she’s just kind of hanging on rather than hitching a ride, if that makes sense.”

“I think so?” Remus says.

“Like those fish that hang onto sharks!” Sirius pitches in.

James smiles, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it too much,” he says to Remus. “It happened to me once right before you joined up. I was breaking things left and right, generally making a nuisance of myself. It’s bound to happen every once in a while.”

Remus offers a small smile in return, reassured that they don’t think he’s as foolish as he feels, then realizes he’s still leaning on Sirius and sits up in a hurry.

“Sorry, Pads,” he mumbles.

Sirius waves him off with a smile. “No worries! Not like I was going to be doing much anyway.”

Remus grimaces. “Still stuck?”

“Still stuck,” James confirms. “Sky’s lightening up, though, so sunrise is close.”

“Do you think,” Remus says hesitantly. “Do you think we could try talking to her?”

James looks pensive, and says, “Is that a good idea? I’m not sure we want to rock the boat while we’re trapped in it.”

“Besides that, we don’t know how bad it’ll affect you,” Sirius adds.

Logically, Remus knows they make sense. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, nodding.

“Shit, Moony, don’t cry!” Sirius says, flustered.

Remus holds up his other hand so they’ll give him a second and says, “No, it’s okay, it makes sense, just-hang on.” The wave of emotion passes and Remus clears his throat. “Sorry. I don’t think she gets to talk very often. They always talk to him because he’s louder.”

“That…checks out, actually,” James says. “The activity captured here is always aggressive.”

Sirius and James look at each other and must come to some sort of agreement, because James says, “Okay, Rem, let’s do an EVP session.”

“Are you sure?” Remus says. “If it’s not a good idea we shouldn’t—”

“Oh none of this was a good idea,” Sirius says, grinning. “But if we’re careful we can probably keep from grabbing any bad attention.”

“We’ll use a recorder instead of the spirit box, for one,” James says. “Maybe we’ll get the SLS, see if we can grab anything on that.”

Once they get everything ready, they sit in a small circle and give Remus the floor.

“Earlier,” he says quietly, “I said he killed you. The folktale is that the townspeople did. What really happened? Will you tell us?”

They’re quiet for a second, and then Remus rewinds the audio recorder to play it back.

Faintly, a woman speaks the words, “framed…murder…lover,” to answer Remus’ questions. The boys look at each other.

“What made you choose Remus?” Sirius asks.

He dutifully rewinds. The word “soft” is the only answer they get. Sirius snorts and Remus shoves him.

“Why can’t you leave?” James asks.

This time there’s no answer when they replay the audio. Remus’ hands start shaking.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Sirius says, taking Remus’ hand in his to take the recorder off of him.

“Wait,” Remus says. “Play it back one more time?”

Sirius does, and the, “angry, run,” sends chills down their spines.

“We can’t run,” James says seriously. “The warning is appreciated, but we’re trapped in here.”

The panic Remus feels isn’t his, he doesn’t think, so in a shaking voice he says, “Something’s wrong.”

“All right, no more EVP,” Sirius deposits it back into the bag as they all listen for the stomping to return. When it stays silent, they relax a little.

“So what do we do with ‘framed, murder, lover’?” Sirius says.

“I don’t like it,” James says. “The spirit downstairs could be even more dangerous than we thought.”

“Oh good,” Remus says faintly.

“I don’t like any of this, to be honest,” James says. “Remus, you look exhausted.”

Remus shakes his head. “I don’t feel great,” he says, taking stock of himself. His head is still pounding, and though the nausea abated some, he feels almost like he’s coming down with something.

“I know she’s not trying to hurt you but taking this much out of you could turn pretty bad pretty quickly,” Sirius says.

“I’m reluctant to force her out, though,” James says. He leans in to take Remus’ face in his hands, looking him in the eye. It’s awkward for a second, but Remus relaxes a moment later. It’s not until Sirius clears his throat and eyes them that James jumps and lets go, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry,” James says. “I think maybe the lover is hanging around.”

Remus shifts, brow furrowed. “He came to take her away,” he says. “The lover did. The other man wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d parked his car somewhere hidden and came back. He killed him in front of her, and then—” he has to stop, a big, hiccuping sob wracking his body. James and Sirius are trying to get him to stop talking, to just relax, but he has to tell them what happened, somebody has to finally know— “he burned the body in the kitchen and threw her on it to burn too, and when that didn’t kill her he  _ beat her to death _ .”

“Jesus,” Sirius breathes into Remus’ hair. Remus clutches him tightly, half in the other man’s lap where Sirius had pulled him close. He’s getting distinctly tired of crying so much, but he can’t do anything to stop. James rubs at his back in a soothing rhythm, and finally, after what feels like hours, Remus’ shuddering breaths ease. He’s still breathing unsteadily but he thinks he’s finally out of tears.

“I don’t think I’ve cried this much since I was almost murdered,” Remus mutters into Sirius’ shoulder. It surprises one of those barking laughs out of him that Remus loves, so he counts it as a win. He’s so tired he’s not even sure he has the energy to sit up, every part of him boneless.

“We really need to get out of here,” Sirius says, holding Remus tightly. “How do we get him to open the door without putting us in danger?”

James pulls away from them and stands, starting to pace. Remus listens to his footsteps across the floorboards.

“We wait for him to leave for work,” Remus mumbles. Sirius looks at him.

“What?” James says, stilling.

“Remus says, ‘we wait for him to leave for work,’” Sirius repeats slowly. “Is the sun coming up yet?”

James crosses to the small window, peeking through the boards. “Yeah, the light’s starting to filter through the trees. I’m surprised Lily and the others haven’t been trying to get ahold of us.”

“They probably have been,” Sirius says darkly.

“We should find somewhere out of the way,” Remus mutters. He feels Sirius shift under him and panics for just a second, thinking Sirius is going to just dump him onto the floor. Then his stomach swoops for a different reason as Sirius just hefts him into the air.

He grasps at Sirius, who pauses to let him get situated and says, “Damn, Moony, you weigh next to nothing.” At James’ curious look he says, “Getting out of the line of fire.”

Remus shudders, prompting a quiet apology for word choice as they move to one of the back corners of the back room. They sit back down, Sirius very carefully avoiding jostling Remus too much as he starts shivering. 

“Temp just dropped,” James murmurs. Sirius holds Remus closer, slotting their bodies alongside each other to share his body heat. They huddle together, and Remus starts to doze again, until he’s woken by Sirius brushing his hair from his face.

“Hey, Moony,” Sirius says. “Get ready, he’s moving around down there.”

Remus pushes himself up, adrenaline spurring him wide awake as he strains to listen. James is in front of him, holding bags of equipment. They must’ve packed up most of the stuff while he was out of it. He tries to prop himself up onto his haunches, to take a bag to help, but his legs don’t want to work. 

Sirius scoops him back up instead as the stomping starts to ascend the stairs. They all hold their breath as it passes their spot, headed towards the front of the house. The front door thumps in its frame, and Sirius blows out his breath.

“Okay, let’s get you out of here, Moony,” Sirius says.

James leads the way cautiously, and they make it to the front of the house to stand in front of the door. He turns the knob and it cracks open and Sirius laughs, a little disbelieving.

“Okay, I’ll get this stuff to the van and we’ll grab the rest of it on a second trip,” James says. Sirius agrees, smiling.

They cross the threshold, and Remus has a second to feel himself falling before he hits the ground. He scrambles, grasping for Sirius, terrified. James flies past him, grabbing Sirius by the lapels and pulling him past the door frame to collapse in a heap next to Remus. They lay in a clump on the threshold, breathing heavily, as Dorcas, Marlene, and Lily rush over to them.

Sirius starts laughing breathlessly, and shortly after James and Remus join him. The women start fussing over them, having had to watch everything on the video feeds helplessly.

“Hang on,” James says. “We have to get the last static cam.”

“I’m going to go get it,” Marlene says. “You all stay right here.”

“Sorry I dropped you, Moony,” Sirius says as they watch her disappear into the house. “Son of a bitch grabbed me.”

“I’m just glad James got to you,” Remus says.

“We got some damn good footage,” James says as Lily checks out the bruising on his neck.

“It was… incredible,” Remus says quietly. “Absolutely terrifying. But incredible.”

Sirius gets to his feet as Marlene comes back with the camera. He offers a hand to Remus, who gets slowly and hesitantly to his feet. He sticks his arms out as he sways, and Sirius ducks under an arm to prop him up.

“Can you walk?” he asks.

“What’s wrong, Remus?” Dorcas asks, hovering worriedly.

“He’s just drained,” Sirius says.

“I’m okay,” Remus mumbles. 

“I’ve got you,” Sirius says, lifting him again. Remus is a little embarrassed since the van is right there, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to struggle.

Sirius gently sets Remus into the back seat, then slides in beside him. James follows them to pack the gear in and then comes around to sit on Remus’ other side, leaving Lily to drive and Dorcas and Marlene to settle into the middle seats.

“You’re gonna have to explain to us what’s going on in a lot of the footage for us to be able to edit it in a way that makes sense,” Marlene says.

“We slept through a lot of it, I think,” Dorcas says. “It was only an hour or so before sunrise that we realized we couldn’t get the door open.”

“Sure thing,” James says, glancing at Remus. “Good practice for our footage commentary.” 

“Looked like a crazy strong attachment,” Lily says, glancing into the rear view at Remus, who leans against Sirius, eyes closed.

He laughs a little. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“James got a little of it too,” Sirius says, grinning. “We cracked this case wide open, too. Remus connected with this woman so strongly he gave us a play-by-play of the day she died.”

“That sounds awful,” Dorcas says, looking enraptured.

“Mm, tell y’later,” Remus mumbles, fading fast.

“We’ll be at the hotel soon, Moony,” Sirius says, giving him a little shake.

Remus shakes his head, turning to press his nose into Sirius’ shoulder with a groan. Sirius freezes, and Remus realizes that without tensions running high in the middle of a haunting he might be making him uncomfortable, but he relaxes a second later, speaking gently. “All right, but you’re not allowed to be mad when I wake you.”

Remus groans again, quieter, but forces himself to stay awake. It’s easier without his brain feeling all fuzzy, though he does turn his face to smush his cheek into Sirius’ arm instead. He loosely follows the conversation about attachments vs possession that James and Sirius are having with Dorcas and Marlene, and he can’t be blamed for drifting off a little when Sirius starts carding a hand through his hair. He makes sleepy eye contact with Dorcas who raises an eyebrow at him and he frowns. He feels a little like he’s taking advantage of Sirius’ concern for his wellbeing, but he’s _ tired _ and he had a long night and he doesn’t exactly care. She rolls her eyes at him fondly before jumping back into the conversation.

He’s jostled back into full consciousness as everyone starts getting out of the car, though Sirius hasn’t moved yet.

“Sorry if I’ve been making you uncomfortable,” Sirius says, staring ahead through the windshield. “I’m-I want to make sure you’re doing okay, but don’t be afraid to tell me to back off.”

Remus sits up with a little laugh, trying to look Sirius in the eye. “I thought I was the one making you uncomfortable,” he says. “I’m good, honestly.”

Sirius turns to him, smile dazzling. “Good. You know you weigh almost nothing, right Moony?”

“That’s definitely not true,” Remus says, smiling.

“Oh it definitely is. Maybe if you had more meat on your bones you wouldn’t be so tired.”

“Hey, you try channeling a spirit overnight and tell me you’re not exhausted.”

Sirius ruffles his hair and then scoops him up, and Remus hooks his arms behind his head. He feels a little awkward about it now, without the haze of the attachment making things less focused, but Sirius just looks down at him and smiles, making his face redden.

“You’re going to sleep forever,” Sirius warns. Remus already feels his eyes getting heavy. Without meaning to, he rests his head against Sirius’ chest, and he’s out before they even make it to the room.


End file.
